Blake Lively has opened up about her close relationship with her mother-in-law.

The 36-year-old actress is married to 47-year-old actor Ryan Reynolds and joked she is only with him to get close to his mother, Tammy Reynolds.

She told OK! magazine: "[Female friendships] are everything to me. From my mom, to my children, my mother-in-law - she's the best. She made my husband take her to US daytime talk show 'The View'. And I said, 'Oh you're doing The View?' And he said, 'No, Mom really wants to go to 'The View'. I said, 'You're gonna sit in the audience of The View?'. And he's like, 'Yeah. Mom really wants to go.

"She's very controlling. No she's the best. I'm so lucky. This is the only reason I'm with him, is to be with her. But female friendships are important."

Meanwhile, Blake has the leading role in the big screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 'It Ends With Us' and she insisted she wasn't nervous about starring and co-executive producing because she took on the project just three months after having a baby.

She said: "The scariest part? I think it was the first time I didn't feel scared. I don't know why - maybe because I just had a kid three months before and I thought 'Oh God, what am I doing?' - I had other stuff to worry about."